Tool for cleaning metal, ceramic, stone, marble, concrete, slate and vitreous surfaces

ABSTRACT

Tool for cleaning metal, ceramic and vitreous surfaces, composed of a body made of low density cellular glass, with the particular feature that the cortex of the cells that take part in the cellular glass present a coating from smaller cells obtained by adding different highly abrasive metal oxides, with the body being able to present any configuration.

OBJECT OF THE INVENTION

This invention refers to a tool embodied in an abrasive block especially conceived for cleaning metal and ceramic surfaces, such as grills, frying pans, saucepans, swimming-pools, tiles, etc.

The main object of the invention is to achieve an optimum cleaning of the aforesaid surfaces to eliminate the toughest dirt, with many and significant advantages compared with other cleaning means conventionally used.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

In the field of application of the present invention several cleaning elements or tools for cleaning metal and ceramic surfaces are known, such as scrubbers or similar and chemical products.

Although this kind of device may eliminate the most superficial dirt, when it comes to tough stains, the efficiency leaves much to be desired.

Attempting to avoid this problem, devices based on abrasive materials are well known, which, although they carry out the function for which they were designed for, the device's ability to cause abrasion is directly proportional to the density thereof, for which reason, in order to get good results it is necessary for the devices to have a hardness that could damage the products being cleaned, which is clearly undesirable.

Another way of cleaning vitrified surfaces is based on using solvents, which are unquestionably toxic or corrosive.

DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The cleaning tool for metal, ceramic, stone, marble, concrete, slate and vitreous surfaces that the present invention proposes has been conceived to solve the problem explained above, on the basis of a simple but highly efficient solution.

More specifically, the tool of the present invention is embodied in a block, in prismatic, elongated, rounded and irregular shape, and in other very diverse configurations without this affecting the essence of the invention, so that the block is made from cellular glass cells, in other words, foam glass, made with a mix of powdered glass at an average of 13 microns, sodium silicate and marble, with the particular feature that the cells present a coating in the walls of the smallest cells obtained from additions of different metal oxides, such as cobalt oxide, chromium oxide, manganese oxide and iron oxide which, as these form part of the glassy mass and as glass is virtually insoluble, present no toxicity. This mix is subjected to a temperature of 850 degrees Celsius for melting and subsequent cooling.

In this way, the bigger cells do not need to have high density, thus considerably reducing the weight of the device, while the high density concentrated in the surface of the cells cause a high abrasive power with minimum weight. With this system foam glass abrasive devices, with densities ranging from 0.16 g/cm³ to 0.4 g/cm³, may be obtained.

In this way, a cleaning tool is obtained from cellular glass with a reduced weight and with a virtually non-existent solubility coefficient that may not be attacked by other chemical compounds except for hydrogen fluoride (HF), causing it to be non-toxic material as it is inert and ecological because it is mostly composed of silicon oxide which participates in the cellular glass and which, as it is well-known, is the composition of natural sand.

In short, with this tool many and considerable advantages are attained compared with other means used for the same purpose, among others, the following:

-   -   The cellular glass tool is non-toxic, as other cleaning         products.     -   As the tool is made of glass and its solubility coefficient is         virtually zero, it is an ecological product, because most of its         composition is silicon oxide; in other words, sand.     -   Apart from being an ecological product, it can also be recycled.     -   It is non-corrosive and it does not require a container to be         marketed because, as it is a simple cellular glass block, it may         be marketed individually or in a small recyclable and disposable         box.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

To complement the description below and to help to a better understanding of the characteristics of the invention, according to the preferred embodiment of the invention, a set of drawings, just as an example, is attached as an integral part of the description, wherein the following is represented:

FIG. 1.—represents a perspective view of a cleaning tool for metal, ceramic and vitreous surfaces embodied according to the object of the invention, and

FIG. 2.—shows a sectional view of the same device represented in the previous figure, in greater detail to see the larger density in the cortex or external surface of the cellular glass cells.

PREFERRED EMBODIMENT OF THE INVENTION

As it may be seen in the figures above, the cleaning tool for metal, ceramic, stone, marble, concrete, slate and vitreous surfaces is composed of a body (1) of rectangular prismatic or irregular configuration, without ruling out any other appropriate configuration, be it spherical or any other geometrical configuration suitable to scrub metal, ceramic, stone, marble, concrete, slate and vitreous surfaces and clean them.

The body (1) is made of cellular glass of lower density than glass, with the particular feature that the cortex (2) of the cells present a coating from smaller cells (3) obtained through adding different metal oxides, which considerably increase the abrasive capacity of the body (1), thus attaining a lighter, ecological, non-toxic and resilient device.

It is clear that the body (1) may be of any size, it may be thicker or less thick, it may be of rectangular-prismatic or irregular configuration, as it is shown in the figure, or it may present any other geometrical form, as it is explained above, as the characteristics, whatever the form, remain unchanged throughout the body (1), resulting in an optimal element for cleaning ceramic, metal, stone, marble, concrete, slate and vitreous surfaces. 

1. Tool for cleaning metal, ceramic, stone, marble, concrete, slate and vitreous surfaces, characterised in that it is composed of a body (1) made of low density cellular glass, with the particular feature that the cortex (2) of the cells that take part in the cellular glass present a coating from smaller cells (3) obtained by adding different highly abrasive metal oxides, with the body (1) being able to present any configuration.
 2. Tool for cleaning metal, ceramic, stone, marble, concrete, slate and vitreous surfaces according to claim 1, wherein the body has a density ranging from 0.16 g/cm³ to 0.4 g/cm³.
 3. Tool for cleaning metal, ceramic, stone, marble, concrete, slate and vitreous surfaces according to claim 1, wherein at least one of the metal oxides are selected from the group consisting of cobalt oxide, chromium oxide, manganese oxide and iron oxide. 